Spa and wellness rituals

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We have often come across various definitions of wellbeing. Once associated with "feeling good", a meaning that in the past has had a connotation focused mainly on the aspect of physical health, today we can affirm that the concept of wellbeing encompasses itself in ever broader aspects.
The same concept of health since 1948, according to the World Health Organization, no longer coincides with the concept of "absence of disease" but depends on a "state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing" and the balance of different aspects of our life that include the aesthetic, emotional and mental ones.

The evolution of the concept of wellbeing has led to the evolution of self-care over the centuries. If in the Middle Ages relying on aesthetic treatments meant even being part of a group of heretics who wanted to modify their bodies, in the 1970s Maslow was conceived as "indispensable for satisfying the total needs of the individual:

"from fundamental physiological needs to those related to the realization and expression of the spiritual sphere”

Therefore, to the concepts of health and wellness are added those of awareness of one's own body and willingness to improve oneself also through the daily care of one's image and the use of aesthetic treatments.
The thinking was that aesthetic treatments should be done consistently, since small gestures for beauty do help with self-esteem, more over the same care that we give to the things we love should be reserved for our body through the self-care we do at home. For even more effective results we are tempted by specialized beauty centres where you can find both traditional and functional treatments such as manicures, pedicures and epilation.

Wellness trends

Among the advantages of attending specialized beauty centres is the presence of professionals in the sector who, through detailed checkups, are able to guarantee the personalization of the treatment among those: anti-cellulite, draining, relaxing and modelling according to the real needs for what concerns the body or moisturizing treatments, for sensitive skins and anti-ageing for face concerns.
Also for the choice of products we see an increasingly marked differentiation and we are not surprised by the progress, alongside the purely cosmetic products, of natural products with the use of natural elements such as volcanic stones, mud, clay, stones, flowers, fruits, sea salts.

Today there are more centres for the care of hands and nails or high quality centres of aesthetic medicine to fight blemishes of the body and face through treatments with a low level of invasiveness which is a substantial difference with cosmetic surgery along with the reduced use of anaesthesia or long stays.

From a wellbeing linked to an aesthetically cared for image based on treatments that are so called traditional, we move on to a slower wellness that is proposed by SPAs or thermal centres. In today's hectic pace of life, where stress is the order of the day, the need to recover the energies of the body and soul is contained in what are called the rituals of wellbeing. They also have ancient origins and a strongly religious descent, but unlike what traditional aesthetics set as a purely visual goal to achieve the ritual, it is based on emotion and is placed on a purely experiential level.

Of course the context in which these rituals are inserted is fundamental, the setting and its location accounts for a good 40% of the experience itself.
Each SPA or thermal centre has its own specific rituals, imagination over the years has given ample space to rituals capable of involving as many senses as possible also through the use of products or ingredients that offer customers real experiences in what is partly aesthetic treatment and partly total emotional involvement in which time and space expand completely, creating a multisensory journey.

If, as we have said, placement is fundamental, we can also affirm that most of the rituals derive above all from the oriental culture in which body-mind-spirit are one and not by chance in the Orient, all treatments must follow a well-defined protocol that is preceded by real rituals of purification of body and soul, and then move on to the realization of the massage with movements performed in a rigorous manner.

By now also Western culture has opened the doors to those who are true and proper journeys of the spirit, we are not surprised to see in Urban SPA or spas the ritual with Tibetan bells for the equilibrium of the mind; the Berber ritual carried out in Hammam, known in the Moroccan tradition and carried out by women on the eve of their marriage, to purify, detoxify and thoroughly cleanse the body, face and hair.
In addition to these rituals, there are many other rituals that we can define in step with today's times, such as a pad massage to relieve the annoying pain deriving from bad posture as a result of an excessive number of hours in front of smartphones or computers. Digital detox treatments aim to detoxify the body from the use of technology thanks to the practice of some yoga positions or bio-electro detox which is a bio-energy treatment based on the laws of electrolysis to expel stored waste from the feet.

The combination of health and wellness

Two worlds, therefore, are those of the centres and SPAs that are sometimes coinciding and sometimes distant, on the one hand the speed and daily life of aesthetic treatments exists and, on the other hand, the slowness and exceptionality of rituals. Both places in which treatments are good for sight but also for the soul. The only common denominator for both sectors is the operator, a figure of considerable importance, given that the achievement of the objectives set depends on him and his manual ability, in which the relationship of trust is the basis for being able to recreate that climate of safety, harmony and well-being in a particularly important moment of total abandonment in which touch is one of the main protagonists.

Each of us will make our own choice by orienting ourselves towards a very personal search for wellbeing; made up of a well-kept image, synonymous with a great gesture of love for our body, but also an image that cannot ignore the care of mental and social wellbeing.

Our advice is to find the right continuous balance between treatments and remedies to improve all aspects of wellness.

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